Integrating Language Skills

“It’s like dividing water; it flows back together again.” p.225 Language skills, such as listening, speaking, reading, and writing all go together hand in hand. We know from Krashen’s stages of second language acquisition that the first skill to develop usually is listening, followed then by speaking, reading, and writing. However, they are all interwoven and interconnected. I had parent conferences last week and this was a fact I was relaying to parents. As their children progress in their reading we will probably see their writing improve as well. I explained it worked both ways. We also discussed their child’s abilities at the moment for speaking and listening in English and how these are also connected. As their listening improves, so will their speaking. I know there are still many institutes and schools that offer classes whose focus is on an isolated language skill, such as reading or listening. I understand their purpose but I don’t think it’s possible to isolate a language skill. They must be integrated. If you are working on listening skills, how would you assess comprehension without speaking or writing? Is it possible to isolate language skills? And if you do, is that going to be best for the student or is it all context dependant?

Teaching Writing

“It is simply not possible to get a whole class of student writers from Point A (wherever they start out) to Point B (perfect, error-free papers) by the end of one writing course. It may not even be possible to get one student writer all the way to that elusive Pont B. This insight has led me to teach and think and write extensively on realistic and effective ways to “treat” error in student writing.” (Ferris p.91) When I read this statement, I felt relieved. To be honest, I often become very frustrated with teaching writing, native language or not. I use to expect, like Dana Ferris, for students to reach Point B and if they didn’t then I felt I did not do my job well enough. I took it as a reflection of my teaching. Over the past few years I have stepped back and had to change my thinking when it comes to writing. I realized I was product centered. After realizing that and seeing it in myself, I know that is not the teacher I want to be. I have tried to be more process centered and help the students focus on limited aspects of their writing at a time (really master them) and to learn from their mistakes within the focus at that time. “So what are teachers to do to help their student’s bridge that gap between what is possible, and what is expected of them?” (Ferris p.95) I really liked suggested principles and practices. I feel I have been more in line with those recently. From Brown, I also liked their principles for teaching writing skills. I thought it was great that they mentioned connecting reading and writing. I have noticed that when I help them make the connection, they learn to think about how to approach writing in a better way. However, I feel they missed stressing the importance of a teacher’s frame of mind when teaching writing. How you feel about it, what you say, your expressions, your expectations, your critiques/questions/criticisms all affect how your students will perform and feel about writing.

Week 8 Reflection

The program in which I teach is a developmental bilingual program. We have a framework for language development which we follow very strictly to ensure that students are receiving the foundation of their L1 and progressing into their L2 at an appropriate pace. This framework breaks down the percentages by grade level of how much instructional time is spent in English and how much is spent in Spanish. Being that I teach first grade, it is 80% in Spanish and 20% in English. I teach their literacy all in Spanish. However, most of their Science and Social Studies (and some Math) is in English. So, naturally those lessons are focused around the content but with integrated language skills, which happen to be speaking and listening because according to our framework I do not develop their literacy in L2 at this level. I found Brown’s text related to teaching listening and speaking interesting for this reason. It is the focus of English language development in my classroom. His explanation of what makes listening and speaking difficult was especially helpful for me. It gives me a deeper understanding of why they may be struggling at times and what I can possibly do to alleviate this. For example, the redundancy issue. The situation he laid out where the two were speaking very clearly illustrated how many of us speak and it can make listening even more difficult is English is not your native language and you are trying to focus on getting the indented meaning of that conversation. One aspect of the reading I felt strongly about was promoting negotiated meaning by handing over a bit of control over the management of learning to the students. I try to do this with my students in terms of asking them what they want to learn about or if they were extremely engaged in a particular lesson I’ll ask them how can we extend this. I know this allows them to take ownership over their learning and they are more likely to be self-motivated in learning in these situations. If the interest is there they will try their hardest to understand, or at least that’s what I see in my classroom.